


Six Dancers on a Stage, Six Dolls on a Shelf

by FireEye



Category: Zero | Project Zero | Fatal Frame Series, Zero: Tsukihami no Kamen | Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 10:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12886212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Ruka doesn't want to go back to the island.  Madoka will.  She doesn't want to, either, but she'll do it for Misaki.





	Six Dancers on a Stage, Six Dolls on a Shelf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elwing_alcyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwing_alcyone/gifts).



Misaki’s always had a strange fascination with dolls.

Okay, maybe not always.

But as long as Madoka can remember.

Sitting on the bed, Madoka hugged the newest doll to her chest, and tried to shut out the rest.

The three of them had returned from the funeral.  Once they were inside Misaki’s room, she and Ruka hadn’t stopped arguing.

“Rougetsu Island,” Misaki was saying.  “It has to be.  It’s the same as it was back then.”

Ruka hugged herself, standing before the mirror on Misaki’s desk.  Misaki had covered it in a cloth, but a small hint of reflection peeked through a corner where it didn’t quite cover.  From the bed, Madoka could almost see herself in that reflection, and looked at the floor instead.

“We’re the only ones left,” Misaki said.  “Maybe... it will end with us.”

Ruka shook her head, and Misaki reached for her.  For an instant, her voice was soft.

“But don’t you want to know why?”

Madoka made a sound.  She didn’t think either of them heard it.  At least, Ruka didn’t.  Sometimes, she felt invisible to Misaki.  Invisible to everybody.

They stood, Misaki touching Ruka’s arm.

Madoka hugged the doll closer.

“Will you go?”

“I’ll go,” Madoka piped up.  Her voice was paper thin and wavered, but Misaki seemed to hear her.  Misaki sighed, and looked down, and took away the doll, putting it on the dresser with the other two.

“Fine,” she said.

That wasn’t the end of it.

Ruka finally looked up.  The grief and shock were still fresh.

Misaki got angry; Ruka shut herself away.

“My mother...” Ruka choked, then shook her head.

Misaki finally seemed to understand.  “I’m sorry.”

“I have to go,” she nevertheless insisted.

Ruka stood before the dresser, staring at the dolls.  Misaki touched her arm again, gently, and turned away.  Madoka lingered beside Ruka.  At a loss for words, she started to reach for Ruka’s shoulder...

But Misaki was leaving, as she said she would.

Madoka hurried, before she could be left behind.

***

 _“Be careful,”_ Ruka had told them.

Madoka wasn’t sure this was careful.  The gruff man who piloted the ferry looked at them like they weren’t right in the head, but every rare once in a while, _someone_ wanted to go to Rougetsu Island.  That it was a couple of teenage girls didn’t phase him.

“There were six of us,” Misaki said.  Madoka didn’t understand, but Misaki had been talking to herself a lot the past few days.

Misaki stood staring out over the water.  At the island, at the lighthouse.  Madoka touched Misaki’s elbow; Misaki looked down, touched her hand softly, briefly, then seemed to fade out again.

Madoka wanted to remember this.  The way Misaki’s hand felt on hers.  The feeling behind the gesture.  But she wasn’t sure she’d want to remember what made Misaki’s far away look.

“I won’t come looking for you,” the ferryman warned them on Rougetsu shore.  “Be here in the morning, after sunrise.”

Misaki barely acknowledged him.  Madoka held fast onto her arm as they disembarked.

She hesitated after her first step on solid ground; something about the island felt wrong, through the soles of her shoes.  By then, Misaki had pulled away, out of reach, leaving her behind.

It was a long walk to the hospital, through an eerie dusk.  Every so often, Madoka found herself staring at this patch of dark forest, that abandoned building where sunlight reflected like a candle through the window, and when she remembered herself, would have to hurry to catch up.  The sun set over the crest of the hill, behind the lighthouse, leaving them in deepening twilight.

Staring at the lighthouse, Madoka wanted to go back.

But Misaki kept on, beckoned by some unseen force.

Rougetsu Hall loomed out of the night.  Foreboding, out of a nightmare.

Misaki stared up at it, allowing Madoka to catch up to her.

“It’s not that scary,” she said, as Madoka huddled into her shoulder beside her.

A melody out of memory drifted through her mind.  Inexplicably, Madoka remembered sitting next to Ruka at the piano, listening to the song Ruka had made up.  She remembered Ruka’s look of concentration as she tried to get the notes right.  She remembered the sunlight, warm across her shoulders.  Her eyes had drifted closed, then, and, as Ruka played, her arm had brushed Madoka’s.  It sounded the same, except...

This was the wrong sound.  It was missing bits and pieces and fit together like moonlight through the trees.

Misaki stirred beside her, and Madoka opened her eyes, latching on to Misaki’s arm.

The moon was rising.

***

Madoka never wanted to remember.

Madoka wanted to remember.

The bits and pieces and fragments resonated, and...

 _she didn’t want to see_.

It was there.  Right inside her.  There all along.

She was being taken away again.

They surrounded her, loomed over her, wanted to be part of her, wanted to replace something within themselves they had lost.

They were calling it forth.

Moonlight spilled through the window, across the floor.  Filling an emptiness inside her.

She saw her face.

She saw the truth in her face.

Madoka wanted to remember.

Madoka never wanted to remember.

***

“Madoka...”

 _No_...

After the funeral, she had found herself speaking to Madoka, as though Madoka were still with her.  Here, at home, on the ferry.  Forgetting, again and again.  Remembering, again and again.

Hurting.

Again and again.

It had been, in part, what compelled her to return to Rougetsu Island.

Madoka’s death, and Misaki’s own fleeting memories.

Ruka didn’t come with her.  Madoka was dead, along with Tomoe and Marie, and...

A girl in black.

There had been six.

There had been five.

There were only three of them left.

“Madoka...?”

Weren’t there only two of them left?

Were there now three or two?

Misaki stood in the abandoned Rougetsu Hall.  Moonlight spilling through the windows, across the floor.  Madoka wasn’t here.  She’d left Madoka on the mainland, on the dresser with Marie and Tomoe, and Ruka hadn’t come with her.

Misaki was alone, with only her memories.

**Author's Note:**

> So my Wii broke and now I can't test it, but... I'm told that Madoka can't die in the first fight?
> 
> Heh.


End file.
